More Trash Talk: GM in Partnership for Garbage-based Ethanol

[Chuck]

...could reduce pump prices $0.50 to $1.00 a gallon, reduce landfills.

Rick Popely - Chicago Tribune - Jan. 14, 2008

Bags of garbage and bald tires that go to landfills today could wind up in your gas tank in a few years, along with wood chips, crop residue and plastic pop bottles.

That's what Coskata Inc., a biofuels start-up in west suburban Warrenville and auto industry giant General Motors Corp. said Sunday at the Detroit Auto Show in announcing a partnership to produce ethanol from just about any carbon-containing material by 2011.

This would produce pump prices that are 50 cents to $1 less per gallon than gasoline -- even before federal ethanol subsidies -- and would reduce greenhouse gases. An Argonne National Laboratory study has concluded that cellulosic ethanol produces 85 percent to 90 percent less greenhouse gas than gasoline, compared to 20 percent to 30 percent less from corn-based ethanol…[Read More]

[Devinator]

I wonder if that is more efficient and environmentally friendly than using energy from a waste to energy plant to charge your electric car?

[Blake]

This is all I have to say about ethanol....

[Robert Lastick]

Originally Posted by Blake

This is all I have to say about ethanol....

Hi Blake

What is it, that the nice young lady is showing us??????? It looks like an afterburner that will take you up to 50,000 feet in 3 seconds!

Bob.

[Blake]

She's showing us that even the most wasteful of automakers are cashing in on the craziness that is called ethanol

More Ferrari pics just because I think they are cool... irreguardless of their excess






There were TONS of ethanol/hybrid/fuel cell/diesel cars at the show. It should be noted that because of the ethanol loopholes in CAFE standards that even automakers like Ferrari can take advantage of it to avoid fines

[Euroford]

That engine is an absolute piece of art. Once the Internal Cumbustion Engine goes away, an art form will be lost.

[mulad]

Originally Posted by Devinator

I wonder if that is more efficient and environmentally friendly than using energy from a waste to energy plant to charge your electric car?

I have doubts about it being any more efficient, but it has the potential to be cleaner. Hopefully, the chemical processing could allow more of the nasty stuff (mercury, lead, other poisonous stuff) to be captured more readily than an incinerator where the trash is burned and goes up a smoke stack. Power plants have scrubbers, of course, but a lot of stuff still gets by.

[WriConsult]

This could be a big win if the process produces less pollution than a garbage burner. Almost 2 gallons from a single tire? Sounds great, if it's economically feasible.

[Big Dave]

In essence this process marries gasification (the first step in Fischer-Tropsch) with genetically engineered microbes to efficiently make an alternative fuel. If the energy ratio turns out to be in the 8:1 range instead of the 1:1 range that corn or sugar-based ethanol this might make alcohol fuel a possible replacement for oil.

If it works out, of course.

Then...we have the EPA standing in the way. These plants will have to be roughly twice the size of oil refineries to put out the same energy. All the roadblocks in the way of refineries stands in the way of these plants in addition to the hysteria over genetically engineered microbes. It may be decades for a refinery (you really cannot call them distilleries) to get the requisite EPA permits.

[Big Dave]

If this process works out...and
If EPA intransigence can be overcome...

GM just saved itself from oblivion and may morph into being an energy company.